Warm Welcome

I get out of the taxi and pay my dues.  As the car drives off, I ignore the sneezes that may or may not herald swine flu and cross the road to get into the shade and shield myself from the warm weather that there is here in San Francisco.

I walk into the office and present myself at reception, asking for the contact person who I’m due to work with over the next few days.  A short wait later, the customer comes scurrying into the reception area.

A safe part of town

“There you are! Finally! We were so worried!”

Worried?

I double check my watch to make sure that I have adjusted the right number of time zones and ask him why he feels this way.

It turns out that he sent an e-mail back to my office to see what time I was going to turn up. Back in Europe, they could not tell as they could not contact me.  This is mainly because my Belgian phone number does not work in the USA so I switched SIM cards to an American number. Still, I wouldn’t have “worried”, so I press further.

“Yes, well, the area here is rather rough and we were worried that you tried to walk here from your hotel and got mugged. Last week, they mugged a guy for about $10.00″

Well, thanks for warning me.

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~ by unexpectedtraveller on July 9, 2009.